e- 


^ ; 

MIDDLEBURY  COLLEGE 

/ BULLETIN 

f Vol.  XV  SEPTEMBER,  1920 

' >V' . -niit  t iHnihV  Of  THE  - • 

No.  1 

Vermont  As  An 
Educational  Environment 


An  Address  at  the  Opening  of  the  121st  Year  of 
Middlebury  College,  September  23,  1920  , 


BY  PRESIDENT  JOHN  M.  THOMAS 


Published  by  the  College,  September,  October,  Novem- 
ber, December,  January,  February,  April,  and  July,  and 
entered  as  second  class  matter  at  the  postoffice  Middle- 
bury,  Vt.,  under  act  of  Congress,  July  16,  1894. 


VERMONT  AS  AN 
EDUCATIONAL  ENVIRONMENT 


OPENING  ADDRESS 
SEPTEMBER  23,  1920 

At  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  Middlebury  College, 
August  22,  1850,  Daniel  P.  Thompson  of  the  Class  of  1820, 
author  of  “The  Green  Mountain  Boys”,  the  book  that  gave 
Vermont  its  fame,  spoke  as  follows: 

“About  thirty  years  ago,  a poor,  untutored,  unfriended 
boy,  who  had  never  seen  books  but  in  visions,  whose  almost 
every  merit,  indeed,  consisted  in 

The  dream,  the  thirst,  the  wild  desire. 

Delirious,  yet  divine — to  know' — 

found  his  way  out  of  the  woods  to  Middlebury  College. 
And  during  his  residence  here,  having  been  inured  to  the 
active  habits  which  a boyhood  life  on  a farm  in  a new  part 
of  the  country  naturally  engenders,  and  which  cannot  at  once 
be  thrown  off;  and  being  withal  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of 
nature  in  her  more  undisturbed  retreats,  he  wandered,  in  his 
vacations  and  leisure  days,  over  nearly  every  square  mile  of 
the  surrounding  region  from  the  third  Falls  of  the  Otter 
upwards,  to  its  mouth  downwards, — from  the  margin  of  the 
beautiful  Champlain,  westward,  to  the  summits  of  the  tower- 
ing Green  Mountains,  eastward,  pausing  in  his  solitary  rap- 
ture, over  its  picturesque  scenes  of  hill  and  dale,  lake  and 
river,  and  taking  mental  daguerreotypes  of  them  all. 

[1] 


“These,  in  after  days,  gradually  grouped  themselves 
around  the  seat  of  the  Alma  Mater  which  had  made  him 
intellectually  what  he  was, — which  had  drawn  to  itself  his 
fond  and  clustering  associations  and  which,  therefore,  became 
the  bright  centre-piece  of  a thus  curiously  composed  ideal 
picture. 

“The  impresses  of  such  scenes, — drawn  by  the  glowing 
pencil  of  youthful  fancy  upon  the  fresh,  unvexed  ground- 
work of  youthful  feeling,  and  kept  bright  by  such  associa- 
tions,— are  prone  to  occupy  a prominent  place  in  the  mind 
of  the  maturer  man,  to  be  constantly  struggling  up  to  the 
light,  and  forcing  themselves  upon  the  view  of  others.  They 
did  so,  at  least,  in  his  case;  and  in  subsequently  devoting  his 
leisure  to  the  composition  of  a literary  work,  illustrative  of 
the  Revolutionary  action  and  early  settlement  of  his  own 
loved  Vermont,  he  laid  the  scene  in  this  section  of  the  coun- 
try; because,  while  his  general  purposes  would  be  equally 
well  thus  subserved,  it  would  afford  him,  besides  the  advan- 
tages of  eye-drawn  description,  an  opportunity — a gratifying 
opportunity,  to  bring  out  many  of  his  long  cherished  pictures. 
And  in  following  the  chain  of  his  partially  assumed  events 
from  place  to  place  in  the  rounds  of  his  former  rambles,  he 
came  at  length  to  the  site  of  the  future  Middlebury;  when 
pausing,  in  fancy,  on  yon  commanding  swell  destined  to  be 
crowned  by  the  proud  and  enduring  marble  pile  emblematic 
of  the  honor  and  permanency  of  the  institution  nestling  within 
its  walls, — when  pausing  thus,  and  pondering  on  what  that 
spot  was, — on  what  it  has  since  become, — what  it  had  been 
to  him,  and  what  great  and  benign  influences  it  had  scattered 
abroad  through  and  upon  thousands  of  others  in  the  land, 
he,  in  the  fullness  of  feeling,  exclaimed : 

‘O,  if  there  be  a town  in  Vermont,  whose  first  set  of 
inhabitants  deserved  the  appellation  of  high-minded  and 
worthy,  it  was  the  early  settlers  of  Middlebury.  Distin- 
guished from  their  first  pitch  on  the  fertile  banks  of  the 

[2] 


Otter,  for  enterprise,  firmness  and  intelligence,  they  were 
among  the  foremost  to  resist  the  aggressions  of  a government 
which,  unwittingly  perhaps,  had  lent  itself  to  aid  the  unprin- 
cipled scheme  of  a few  rapacious  land  speculators;  while 
the  opening  scenes  of  the  Revolution  found  them  ready  to 
engage,  with  the  same  alacrity,  and  with  the  best  of  their 
means,  in  the  greater  work  of  achieving  the  independence  of 
their  whole  country.  And  scarcely  had  the  storm  of  war 
passed  over,  and  the  sun-light  of  peace  begun  to  break  in  on 
their  infant  settlement,  before  they  united,  with  a zeal  as 
extraordinary,  considering  their  means  and  circumstances, 
as  it  was  commendable,  in  rearing,  by  private  munificence 
alone,  a collegiate  institution  which,  for  many  succeeding 
years,  did  more  towards  elevating  the  moral  and  literary 
character  of  Vermont  than  any  one  cause  operating  within 
her  borders.  And  her  Alumni,  now  many  of  them  in  emi- 
nence at  the  bar,  and  in  the  pulpit,  from  the  humble  school 
room  to  the  Senate  chamber  of  the  nation,  but  nobly  dispens- 
ing her  light  among  the  people  of  every  clime  upon  the  face 
of  the  broad  earth,  whither,  in  the  fearless  and  enterprising 
spirit  of  their  fathers  they  have  scattered  themselves, — now 
to  teach  the  arts  to  the  boorish  Russ  or  besotted  Turk, — now 
to  assist  the  enslaved  Greek,  or  South  American,  in  his 
struggles  for  freedom,  and  now  to  rear  the  standard  of  the 
Cross  among  the  degraded  Pagans  of  the  East, — her  grateful 
Alumni,  often,  turn  back,  in  fancy,  to  their  beloved  Alma 
Mater, 

“To  linger  delighted  o'er  scenes  recall'd  there," 

and  admire,  and  bless  the  noble  and  self-sacrificing  spirit  of 
Painter,  Chipman,  Miller,  Storrs,  Matthews  and  others  of 
her  munificent  founders,  who  made  themselves  poor  in 
pecuniary  estate,  that  they  might  make  the  children  of  their 
country  rich  in  knowledge’.  ” 

What  interests  me  particularly  in  this  noble  tribute  is 

[3] 


Thompson’s  testimony  to  the  influence  of  his  Vermont  envi- 
ronment in  his  education.  His  wanderings  in  fields  and 
woods  up  and  down  this  valley,  his  excursions  in  the  moun- 
tains, to  Lake  Champlain  and  Lake  Dunmore,  wrought 
mightily  upon  his  mind  and  spirit.  The  hills  and  the 
forests  were  important  elements  in  his  education.  He  studied 
deeply  and  intimately  also  in  the  early  records  of  this  region, 
so  that  in  scaling  mountains  and  threading  forests  he  did 
not  merely  look  upon  beautiful  scenery,  but  he  made  real  to 
his  mind  the  character  and  spirit  of  the  men  who  settled  these 
valleys  and  won  and  saved  the  freedom  of  the  early  Ver- 
mont commonwealth. 

We  look  out  to-day  upon  the  same  majestic  mountains 
as  greeted  the  eye  of  the  author  of  the  story  which  gave  the 
world  its  fixed  impression  of  the  character  of  Ethan  Allen 
and  the  early  Vermonters.  The  same  documents  and  sources 
are  open  to  us  as  those  which  so  stirred  his  imagination, 
and  every  year  is  bringing  new  ones  to  light.  We  ought  to 
make  more  of  our  Vermont  environment.  I trust  we  may 
soon  find  larger  use  in  an  educational  way  of  the  magnifi- 
cent Green  Mountain  Estate  which  is  the  unique  possession 
of  this  college.  Many  of  you  are  Vermonters  by  birth  and 
residence;  others  have  chosen  Vermont  as  the  place  of  your 
college  education.  To  all  of  you  Vermont  has  much  to  give, 
through  its  rugged  climate,  its  beauty  of  valley  and  moun- 
tain, and  particularly  through  its  marvellously  interesting 
and  instructive  history,  especially  the  story  of  its  founders, 
the  men  who  made  Vermont. 

In  an  old  hair-cloth,  brass-studded  trunk,  a faithful 
repository  for  many  years  of  some  of  our  college  archives, 
there  is  an  age-yellowed  bit  of  paper,  entitled,  “Schedule  of 
Articles  to  Beneficiaries  of  the  Northwestern  Branch  of  the 
American  Education  Society,  from  the  Depository  in  Middle- 
bury,  1821/’  It  records  that  W.  P.  Hooker,  “Receiver”  of 

[4] 


the  Society — the  term  evidently  has  another  connotation  than 
financial  embarrassment — -had  delivered  in  behalf  of  the 


Northwestern  Education  Society, — 

“To  Henry  Boynton 

1 vest,  valued  at 

$ 2 50 

1 pr.  socks 

50 

1 hat  (I  suppose) 

3 50 

2 shirts  and  1 shirtee 

4 50 

2 handkerchiefs 

1 00 

1 silver  watch 

9 00 

To 

Solomon  Hardy 

1 pr.  thick  pantaloons 

4 50 

1 thin  vest 

2 00 

To 

Frye  Bailey  Reed 

2 pr.  socks 

1 00 

2%  yds.  cloth 

3 34 

1 double  cravat 

67 

7 yds.  cotton  cloth 

1 75 

2%  yds.  blue  gulled  cloth 

4 50 

To 

Luther  Shaw 

2 % yds.  cloth 

2 67 

vest  pattern 

75 

To 

Merrit  Harmon 

8%  yds.  great  coat  cloth 

11  00 

4%  yds.  coat  cloth 

6 50 

7 yds.  cotton  for  shirts 

1 75 

To 

William  P.  Atwater 

1 surtout 

10  00 

2%  yds.  cloth  for  pantaloons 

3 25 

To 

Lyman  Gilbert 

1 pr.  mittens 

50 

$76  68 

The  above  prices  are  nominal — some  high,  others  low, — as 
they  were  valued  by  the  travelling  agent  and  those  who  made 
the  donations.  Some  other  articles  may  have  been  delivered 
in  my  absence.  W.  P.  Hooker,  Receiver.” 

Henry  Boynton  was  a student  in  Middlebury  College 
in  the  Class  of  1826  and  was  bom  in  Cornwall,  Vermont. 
Solomon  Hardy  hailed  from  Hollis,  N.  H.,  and  was  gradu- 
ated in  1824.  He  became  a Home  Missionary  in  the  West, 
and  was  the  father  of  seven  sons.  Frye  Bailey  Reed  of  the 

[5] 


Class  of  1824  entered  college  from  Brookfield,  Vt.,  and  was 
a missionary  in  western  New  York  and  in  Wisconsin  for 
fifty  years.  Luther  Shaw , 2nd,  came  from  Rutland,  gradu- 
ated in  1826,  served  missionary  churches  in  Michigan  for 
thirty  years,  and  sought  recreation  in  his  old  age  as  travel- 
ing agent  for  the  American  Bible  Society.  Merrit  Harmon 
of  Rupert  graduated  in  1825  and  took  his  “great  coat”  on 
missionary  service  to  Michigan,  whence  he  later  pushed  west 
to  Iowa.  William  P . Atwater , of  Castleton,  was  a member 
of  the  Class  of  1824,  but  the  $10  surtout  must  have  spoiled 
him,  since  he  did  not  graduate.  The  fifty-cent  mittens  of 
Lyman  Gilbert , of  Brandon  and  the  Class  of  1824,  failed  to 
win  him  to  missionary  service,  for  he  spent  his  life  in  the 
luxuries  of  a Congregational  pastorate  in  Newton,  Mass. 

My  interest  in  this  old  schedule  is  in  the  location  of 
the  towns  from  which  these  young  men  came,  and  the  geo- 
graphical portion  of  the  name  of  the  society  of  which  they 
were  beneficiaries:  Hollis,  N'.  H.,  and  the  Vermont  towns 
of  Cornwall,  Brookfield,  Rutland,  Rupert,  Castleton,  and 
Brandon.  And  the  organization  was  the  “Northwestern 
Education  Society”,  organized  and  promoted  to  assist  young 
men  of  the  Northwest  to  an  education.  Other  documents  in 
the  old  trunk  prove  conclusively  that  the  object  of  this  society 
— the  pioneer  of  American  Education  Societies — was  not  to 
send  men  to  the  Northwest,  but  to  help  Northwestern  young 
men.  Vermont  was  then — or  at  the  time  when  the  Society 
took  its  name — the  Northwest.  There  was  a time  when 
Vermont  was  the  western  frontier.  All  through  the  years 
of  its  foundation  and  settlement  it  was  regarded  as  the  far, 
forbidding  West.  Fifty  years  after  the  beginning  of  rapid 
growth  of  the  State,  the  designation  Northwest  was  not 
incongruous  in  the  name  of  one  of  its  benevolent  agencies. 

The  feel  of  the  West — consciousness  of  possession  of 
immense  spaces,  of  marvelous  fertility,  of  unexampled  eco- 
nomic opportunity — came  over  the  early  settlers  of  Vermont. 

[6] 


Writing  in  1794,  Dr.  Samuel  Williams  said, — “This  is  the 
youngest  of  the  States,  an  inland  country,  and  now  rapidly 
changing  from  a vast  tract  of  uncultivated  wilderness , to 
numerous  and  extensive  settlements.  In  this  stage  of  society, 
industry  and  economy  seem  to  produce  the  greatest  effects, 
in  the  shortest  periods  of  time.”  (History  of  Vermont,  1794, 
p.  viii)  The  impression  of  tremendous  size  and  of  a won- 
derful new  wealth  of  nature  is  thus  recorded  by  Dr.  Williams 
in  another  passage: — “Uncultivated  by  the  hand  of  man,  it 
(Vermont)  presents  to  our  view  a vast  tract  of  woods,  abound- 
ing with  trees,  plants,  and  flowers,  almost  infinite  in  number, 
and  of  the  most  various  species  and  kinds.”  (ibid.  p.  66) 
Again  he  says: — “The  land  included  within  these  limits  is 
of  a very  fertile  nature,  fitted  for  all  the  purposes  and  pro- 
ductions of  agriculture.  The  soil  is  deep,  and  of  a dark 
colour;  rich,  moist,  warm,  and  loamy.  It  bears  corn  and 
other  kinds  of  grain,  in  large  quantities,  as  soon  as  it  is 
cleared  of  the  wood,  without  any  ploughing  or  preparation; 
and  after  the  first  crops,  naturally  turns  to  rich  pasture  or 
mowing.”  The  familiar  Western  ring  is  heard  in  Dr.  Wil- 
liams’ comments  on  “the  power  with  which  nature  acts  in 
the  productions  of  vegetable  life  in  this  part  of  America,” 
denoting,  he  says,  “an  energy,  a power  in  the  vegetable  life, 
which  nature  has  never  exceeded  in  the  same  climate,  in  any 
other  part  of  the  globe.”  (ibid.  p.  80) 

Visitors  to  Palestine,  observing  the  poverty-stricken 
appearance  of  the  country,  have  often  marvelled  at  the 
Biblical  descriptions  of  it,  as  a land  flowing  with  milk  and 
honey,  “a  land  of  wheat  and  barley,  and  vines  and  fig  trees 
and  pomegranates;  a land  of  oil  olives  and  honey.”  With 
all  allowance  for  the  bleeding  taxation  of  the  Turk,  it  does 
not  seem  possible  that  those  stony  hillsides  could  ever  have 
been  described  as  “a  land  wherein  thou  shalt  eat  bread  with- 
out scarceness,  thou  shalt  not  lack  anything  in  it.”  The  expla- 
nation is  that  the  visitor  approaches  Palestine  from  the  well- 

[7] 


tilled  fields  of  Europe  and  America,  while  the  people  who 
found  it  a land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey  approached  it 
from  the  desert.  In  contrast  with  the  steppes  of  Moab  and 
the  sands  of  Arabia,  the  holy  land  was  a paradise  of  fertility 
and  wealth.  To  realize  the  mind  of  any  people  as  they 
settle  a new  country,  one  must  consider  its  contrast  with  the 
region  from  which  they  came,  not  its  qualities  in  relation  to 
territory  which  has  since  been  opened  for  settlement. 

The  men  who  made  Vermont  came  from  Connecticut 
and  western  Massachusetts,  and  largely  from  the  hill  towns 
in  those  regions.  Any  one  who  has  travelled  in  those  parts, 
or  who  has  observed  from  a car  window  from  Bellows  Falls 
to  Boston,  with  the  numberless  acres  of  rocks  and  scrub 
oaks,  can  well  understand  the  impression  of  boundless  fertil- 
ity, of  almost  miraculous  exuberance  of  vegetation,  which 
was  made  upon  the  early  settlers  by  the  rich  valleys  of 
Vermont.  They  felt  themselves  in  God’s  new  country  of 
boundless  wealth  and  promise — the  same  feeling  that  has 
come  over  the  Western  pioneer  in  every  stage  of  his  march 
to  the  Pacific. 

The  kinship  of  Vermont  with  the  ever-receding  West 
is  further  manifest  in  the  rapid  acquirement  of  substantial 
means  by  the  men  who  made  the  commonwealth.  The  West 
has  always  been  a get-rich-quick  country,  in  purpose,  ambi- 
tion, and  spirit,  if  not  always,  in  fact,  in  individual  instances. 
Such  was  Vermont  in  her  early  days, — an  opportunity  to 
improve  one’s  condition,  at  least  to  a competence,  by  leaps 
and  bounds.  A year  or  two  ago  an  exiled  Vermonter  in 
the  woods  of  Wisconsin  sent  me  a pamphlet  reciting  the 
matrimonial  misfortunes  of  one  Elias  Hall,  who  was  brought 
by  his  father  from  Cheshire,  Conn.,  to  Pittsford,  Vt.,  in  1785, 
and  who  removed  in  1800  to  Middlebury.  The  title  page 
reads  > — 


[8] 


DISCLOSURE  OF  FACTS 


in  consequence 
of  a 

DECREE  FOR  ALIMONY 

BY  THE 

Supreme  Court 

Addison  County,  January  Term,  1823, 
against 

ELIAS  HALL 


“The  worst  of  curses  yet  bestow'd  on  man, 
“Since  first  in  paradise  his  woes  began, 
Ts  to  be  doom'd  to  drag  the  load  of  life, 
'Forever  goaded  by  a scoulding  wife." 


Montpelier,  Vt., 

1825. 

I will  not  entertain  you  by  a recital  of  Elias  Hall’s 
struggle  for  freedom,  but  I am  interested  in  the  incidental 
references  in  his  narrative  of  woe  to  his  business  adventures 
and  the  success  which  attended  them.  Hall  came  to  Middle- 
bury  in  1800,  when  the  settlement  was  only  about  a dozen 
years  old,  a young  man  without  a cent.  He  went  to  work  in 
a shop  and  learned  the  trade  of  a gunsmith.  He  says:  “After 
about  ten  years’  industry,  and  the  most  rigid  economy,  I 

[9] 


found,  by  estimation,  that  I had  acquired  from  ten  to  twelve 
thousand  dollars  worth  of  property;  consisting  of  building 
lots  and  buildings  in  Middlebury,  wild  lands,  mills,  etc.  I 
had  acquired  the  whole  by  my  own  industry  and  hard  earn- 
ings, not  by  speculation.”  (p.  5)  Imagine  a young  mechanic 
doing  that  in  Middlebury  today,  or  in  any  other  town  in 
Vermont ! 

You  have  to  travel  to  the  far  West  before  you  find  simi- 
lar rapid  increase  in  estate,  or  the  spirit  of  ambition  and 
achievement  which  leads  to  it.  It  is  a pioneer  accomplish- 
ment. Elias  Hall  did  it  in  Vermont,  but  it  was  when  Ver- 
mont was  the  pioneer  West,  when  every  town  in  the  State 
was  filled  with  young  men  alert  to  establish  their  fortunes,  in 
the  real  Western  spirit. 

To  the  possibilities  of  rapid  economic  advance  in  the 
early  days  of  Vermont,  the  historian  from  whom  I have 
already  quoted,  Dr.  Williams,  bears  striking  testimony.  He 
says:  “Amidst  the  hard  living  and  hard  labour  that  attends 
the  forming  a new  settlement,  the  settler  has  the  most  flatter- 
ing prospects  and  encouragements.  One  hundred  acres  of 
land  in  a new  town  does  not  generally  cost  him  more  than 
he  can  spare  from  the  wages  of  one  or  two  years.  Besides 
maintaining  himself,  the  profits  of  his  labour  will  generally 
enable  a young  man,  in  that  period  of  time,  to  procure  him- 
self such  a tract  of  land.  When  he  comes  to  apply  his  labour 
to  his  own  land,  the  produce  of  it  becomes  extremely  profit- 
able. The  first  crop  of  wheat  will  fully  pay  him  for  all  the 
expense  he  has  been  at,  in  clearing  up,  sowing,  and  fencing 
his  land;  and,  at  the  same  time,  increases  the  value  of  the 
land  eight  or  ten  times  the  original  cost.  In  this  way,  every 
day’s  labour  spent  in  clearing  up  his  land  receives  high  wages 
in  the  grain  which  it  procures,  and  adds  at  the  same  time  a 
quantity  of  improved  land  to  the  farm.  An  acre  of  land 
which,  in  its  natural  state,  cost  him  perhaps  the  half  of  one 
day’s  labour,  is  thus  in  one  year  made  of  that  value  that  it 

[10] 


will  afterwards  annually  produce  him  from  fifteen  to  twenty- 
five  bushels  of  wheat,  or  other  kinds  of  produce  of  equal 
value.  In  this  way,  the  profits  attending  labour  on  a new 
settlement  are  the  greatest  that  ever  can  take  place  in  agricul- 
ture; the  labourer  constantly  receiving  double  wages.  He 
receives  high  wages  in  the  produce  of  his  com  or  wheat;  and 
he  receives  much  higher  wages,  of  another  kind,  in  the 
annual  addition  of  a new  tract  of  cultivated  land  to  his  farm. 
This  double  kind  of  wages,  nature  with  great  benevolence 
and  design  has  assigned  to  the  man  of  industry,  when  he 
is  first  making  a settlement  in  the  uncultivated  parts  of 
America:  and  in  two  or  three  years  he  acquires  a very  com- 
fortable and  independent  subsistence  for  a family,  derived 
from  no  other  source  but  the  earth  and  his  own  industry.” 

The  same  author’s  description  of  the  activity  and  enter- 
prise which  characterized  the  Vermont  settlers  reads  like  the 
prospectus  of  a Western  Board  of  Trade.  “A  spirit  of  activ- 
ity and  enterprise  is  everywhere  found  in  a new  State. 
Depending  upon  their  own  industry,  and  having  nothing  to 
expect  from  speculation  and  gaming  in  public  funds,  or  from 
the  errors  or  vices  of  government,  the  views  of  the  people  are 
directed  to  their  own  employments  and  business,  as  the  only 
probable  method  of  acquiring  subsistence  and  estate.  Hence 
arises  a spirit  of  universal  activity  and  enterprise  in  business. 
No  other  pursuits  or  prospects  are  suffered  to  divert  their 
attention;  for  there  is  nothing  to  be  acquired  in  any  other 
way.  Neither  begging,  or  gaming,  or  trading  upon  public 
funds,  measures,  and  management  can  be  profitable  employ- 
ments to  the  people  who  live  at  a distance  from  wealthy  cities 
and  the  seat  of  government.  The  only  profitable  business  is 
to  pursue  their  own  profession  and  calling.  To  this  pursuit 
their  views  become  directed;  and  here  their  activity  and 
enterprise  become  remarkable.  No  difficulty  or  hardship 
seems  to  discourage  them;  and  the  perseverance  of  a few 
years  generally  serves  to  overcome  the  obstacles  that  lay  in 

[11] 


their  way  at  first.  It  is  only  those  who  are  of  this  enterpris- 
ing spirit  who  venture  to  try  their  fortunes  in  the  woods;  and 
in  a few  years  it  generally  raises  them  into  easy  and  comfort- 
able circumstances.” 

It  is  a temptation  to  parallel  many  characterizations  and 
praises  of  early  Vermont  with  familiar  boastings  of  Western 
historians  and  promoters,  as  each  new  territory  from  western 
New  York  to  the  Pacific  slope  has  been  hailed  as  the  country 
of  man’s  perfect  dreams.  The  climate  of  Vermont  is  the 
most  healthful  and  invigorating  in  the  world;  the  woods  and 
streams  produce  game  and  fish  in  abundance  never  witnessed 
elsewhere;  the  mean  period  of  human  life  exceeds  that  of 
. the  ancient  and  populous  countries  of  Europe ; the  soil  exhib- 
its a power  of  vegetable  life  never  exceeded  in  any  part  of 
the  globe;  the  political  institutions  guarantee  perfect  freedom 
and  protect  all  classes  in  perfect  enjoyment  of  every  right 
and  happiness;  the  population  is  made  up  of  the  brave  and 
hardy,  the  sifted  and  selected  of  older  societies.  All  this 
is  thoroughly  Western  and  stamps  the  men  who  made  Ver- 
mont with  the  unmistakable  mark  of  the  Western  pioneer. 

Vermont  was  the  first  Northwest  in  the  manner  of  its 
settlement  and  in  the  character  of  its  population.  It  was 
opened  for  possession  just  when  the  American  people  began 
their  rapid  march  toward  the  Pacific.  It  took  nearly  200* 
years  of  American  settlement  to  reach  and  people  the  valleys 
of  Vermont.  Southward  the  progress  had  been  fully  as  slow, 
and  the  ragged  line  of  settlement  hugged  close  to  the  summit 
of  the  Appalachians.  After  the  Revolution  began  the  great 
migration,  which  is  the  outstanding  fact  in  American  history, 
which  peopled  the  vast  convex  of  the  continent  from  the 
western  slope  of  the  Alleghenies  to  the  foot-hills  of  the 
Rockies.  From  Plymouth  and  Massachusetts  Bay  to  south- 
ern Vermont  the  advance  of  settlement  was  scarcely  a mile  a 
year.  The  settlers  were  few;  Indians  held  the  country  and 
the  soil  was  forbidding.  The  forests  were  clogged  with  vines 

[12] 


and  brush,  and  it  took  a man  a life-time  to  clear  30  acres. 
On  the  prairies  a strong  plow  and  four  horses  changed  virgin 
soil  into  fertile  farm  in  one  season.  There  the  frontiers- 
man’s advance  was  20  to  30  miles  a year.  It  was  this  physi- 
cal fact  which  enabled  the  nation  to  take  possession  of  the 
vast  mid-continent  in  a fourth  the  time  which  had  been 
required  for  the  conquest  of  the  Atlantic  slope. 

The  territory  of  Vermont  is  not  prairie,  but  it  far  sur- 
passes lower  New  England  in  agricultural  possibilities.  In 
the  Connecticut  and  Champlain  countries  and  the  innumer- 
able narrow  but  fertile  river-beds  of  Vermont,  the  New  Eng- 
lander first  came  into  contact  with  rich  American  soil.  He 
managed  to  wrest  a living  from  the  sand  dunes  of  Massa- 
chusetts for  the  love  of  God  and  his  dislike  of  Episcopacy, 
but  he  caught  the  breath  of  heavy-laden  fields,  he  thrilled 
with  the  possibilities  of  the  wealth  of  a virgin  continent, 
when  first  the  West  opened  before  him. 

The  men  who  made  Vermont  were  the  advance  guard 
of  the  American  army  of  conquest  of  the  West.  They  did 
not  come  for  religious  purposes.  They  were  satisfied  with 
both  religious  and  political  conditions  in  the  older  communi- 
ties. But  they  wanted  more  land  and  richer  fields.  They 
were  not  pushed  out;  they  were  invited  in.  It  was  not  un- 
desirable conditions  behind  them,  but  attractive  opportuni- 
ties before  them,  which  were  the  dynamic  of  the  movement. 
In  all  the  settlements  of  the  maritime  Atlantic  plain,  it  was 
not  so  much  the  desirability  of  the  new  region  which  effected 
the  change  of  home  as  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  immigrants 
with  conditions,  sometimes  economic,  sometimes  religious, 
sometimes  political,  in  the  countries  of  the  old  world.  But 
the  opening  of  Vermont  was  the  beginning  of  a new  move- 
ment with  a new  motive.  The  vast  continent  had  begun  to 
beckon.  Generations  had  come  at  last  which  could  turn 
their  backs  definitely  and  forever  on  the  old  world,  and  who 
felt  their  fortunes  bound  up  solely  with  the  new.  Then  was 

[13] 


begun  the  real  conquest  of  the  continent,  and  in  this  conquest 
the  men  who  made  Vermont  were  in  the  forefront  and  opened 
the  highway  for  the  great  horde  which  followed  them,  the 
vast  army,  larger  than  ever  an  emperor  commanded,  of  the 
American  Western  pioneers. 

The  settlement  of  Vermont  has  its  kinship,  not  with 
Jamestown  and  Plymouth  and  Massachusetts  Bay,  but  with 
the  extension  of  American  territory  over  the  vast  interior. 
The  original  Vermonter  was  not  the  weak  successor  of  John 
Smith  and  John  Alden,  but  the  precursor  of  the  Western 
frontiersman.  Ethan  Allen  and  Daniel  Boone  were  brothers 
in  spirit,  pioneers  of  a new  race,  the  stalwart  men  who  sub- 
dued the  continent  and  wrought  for  America  its  home.  It 
is  a far  cry  from  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  with  their  Cambridge 
learning,  their  psalm  singing,  and  their  missionaries  to  the 
Indians,  to  the  Green  Mountain  Boys,  with  their  buckskin 
breeches,  their  rude,  brusque  speech,  and  their  beech  seal  for 
Tories,  but  across  all  the  miles  of  forest  and  prairie  the 
Green  Mountain  Boy  is  own  brother  to  the  cow-boy  of  the 
plains  and  the  trapper  and  fur-trader  of  the  Rockies.  The 
older  communities  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard  have  contributed 
much  to  the  life  of  the  nation.  They  have  promoted  culture, 
swayed  national  policies,  developed  American  industry,  and 
preserved  a stable  finance.  But  the  national  domain,  the 
continent  whose  broad  extent  is  the  foundation  of  the  dis- 
tinctive American  culture,  whose  wealth  has  enforced  the 
will  of  the  nation,  furnished  food  for  her  industry  and  saved 
her  finance,  was  won  by  the  pioneer  with  the  squirrel  cap. 
He  has  had  too  little  honor  in  American  history.  His  rough 
speech  and  forbidding  exterior  have  not  especially  com- 
mended him  to  those  who  write  books.  His  vices  have  been 
plain  enough  in  all  too  many  instances — coarse  language, 
intemperance  in  drink,  anger  that  burned  fiercely,  hatred  of 
an  enemy  that  lasted  till  death.  But  his  virtues  are  also 
discernible — he  could  fell  the  largest  trees  and  ford  the 

[14] 


wildest  rivers,  he  could  shoot  straight  and  wait  for  his  range 
under  fire,  and  take  care  of  himself  alone  in  the  forest  in  the 
dead  of  winter;  he  was  afraid  of  nothing  under  God’s  open 
sky,  and  his  boy  could  take  up  his  axe  and  rifle  at  an  age 
when  European  offspring  are  scarcely  out  of  the  cradle.  If 
virtues  are  qualities  which  God  needs  for  His  work,  the  qual- 
ities of  the  American  pioneer  must  be  judged  less  harshly 
than  our  drawing-room  doctrines  have  been  inclined. 

The  men  who  made  Vermont  were  pioneers  of  pioneers 
— the  ambitious,  discontented,  restless  element  from  a com- 
munity made  up  of  eager  and  impetuous  spirits.  The  Amer- 
ican wilderness  had  already  begun  to  do  its  work  with  them. 
Their  clan  had  been  trained  for  150  years  in  the  conquest  of 
the  forest.  They  knew  the  manner  of  the  god  of  the  land. 
They  knew  its  game  and  how  to  hunt  and  fish.  There  was 
no  need  for  thousands  of  them  to  starve,  as  at  Jamestown, 
while  experiments  were  being  made  in  trying  to  grow  Euro- 
pean crops  in  the  European  way.  They  had  learned  the  new 
life  necessary  for  the  new  world  and  they  pressed  into  its 
heart  with  the  eagerness  of  men  who  were  creating  a new 
civilization. 

Such  men  are  always  democratic  and  lovers  of  freedom 
in  the  extreme.  They  had  no  other  idea  than  that  they  were 
complete  masters  in  all  affairs  in  the  new  lands  they  had 
bought  and  paid  for,  and  which  they  had  won  from  the 
wilderness  by  severest  hardship  and  toil.  They  carried 
individual  and  community  liberty  to  such  a length  that  it 
impressed  conservative  and  cultured  observers  from  the  sea- 
board region  as  the  veriest  anarchy  and  disorder.  When 
Timothy  Dwight,  ex-President  of  Yale  College,  traveled  in 
northern  New  England  at  various  times  from  1798  to  1810, 
he  noted  the  radical  and  unconventional  ideas  of  large  por- 
tions of  the  inhabitants  and  characterized  the  Vermonters  as 
“Arabian  troops”,  “lovers  of  disorder”.  Their  tendency  to 
go  into  politics  he  especially  deprecated.  His  judgment  of 

[15] 


the  inhabitants  of  the  new  region  doubtless  represents  fairly 
the  opinion  of  the  more  cultured  communities.  I mention  it, 
not  because  I think  his  judgment  correct,  but  to  illustrate  the 
new  force  which  was  coming  into  American  life.  He  thought 
the  people  of  Vermont  restless,  bold,  ambitious,  cunning, 
talkative,  skilled  in  land- jobbing.  The  noise  of  the  men  in 
the  taverns  talking  politics  until  late  at  night  disturbed  his 
rest,  and  he  lit  his  candle  to  record  in  his  note  book  that 
“first  settlers  are  usually  those  who  have  met  with  difficulties 
at  home”. 

This  is  President  Dwight’s  idea  of  the  men  who,  as  he 
confesses,  had  already  struggled  onward  from  New  England 
to  Louisiana,  i.  e.,  the  Mississippi  valley.  It  is  the  conserva- 
tive Easterner’s  idea  of  the  Western  pioneer,  whom  we  can 
now  more  justly  estimate  from  the  results  of  his  labor,  the 
winning  of  the  continent  for  the  national  home. 

Undoubtedly,  from  his  point  of  view,  President  Dwight 
was  a fair  and  impartial  observer.  But  as  a seaboard  man 
he  could  not  understand  nor  portray  sympathetically  the  new 
style  of  manhood  which  the  American  wilderness  was  creat- 
ing, just  as  later  the  East  could  not  understand  Abraham 
Lincoln.  Nothing  shows  this  more  clearly  than  his  char- 
acterization of  Ethan  Allen.  Dr.  Dwight  describes  him  as 
a man  of  “confined  education,  naturally  haughty,  restless, 
and  enterprising.  In  his  conversation  he  was  voluble,  blunt, 
coarse,  and  profane;  in  his  pretensions  to  knowledge,  daring; 
and  in  his  assertions,  bold  and  peremptory.  The  confidence 
which  he  seemed  to  possess  in  himself  naturally  inspired  con- 
fidence in  others,  still  less  informed ; and  they  really  believed 
that  he  who  asserted  so  positively  must  be  sure  that  his  asser- 
tions were  true.  With  these  advantages,  and  these  only,  he 
early  obtruded  himself  upon  the  public  as  an  opposer,  and 
ridiculer,  of  Christianity;  and  gloried  in  the  character  of  an 
Infidel.  A little  circle  of  loose  persons  will  always  gather 
about  a man  of  this  description.  Allen  was  surrounded  by 

[16] 


a herd  of  such  men,  both  parties  being  equally  pleased;  he, 
to  be  listened  to  as  their  oracle;  and  they  to  learn  that  a 
virtuous  character  was  no  better  than  a vicious  one,  and  that 
God  would  punish  vice  neither  here  nor  hereafter.  By  his 
own  companions  he  was  heard  with  attention  and  credit; 
and  at  times  triumphed  over  modest  antagonists  by  peremp- 
toriness and  effrontery,  by  rudeness  and  ribaldry.”  And 
this  was  all  that  President  Dwight  could  find  to  say  of  the 
father  of  the  freedom  of  Vermont,  the  man  who,  whatever 
his  limitations,  saved  the  very  life  of  our  brave  little  Com- 
monwealth. It  was  the  seaboard  man  again  who  remarked, 
in  the  person  of  Benedict  Arnold,  that  Allen  was  “a  proper 
man  to  lead  his  own  wild  people,  but  entirely  unacquainted 
with  military  service”. 

The  Hudson  and  Champlain  valleys,  the  sea-level  high- 
way from  the  Atlantic  to  the  St.  Lawrence,  seem  to  form  a 
natural  unity  of  all  American  territory  to  the  east  and  to 
include  Vermont  with  New  England.  Vermonters  are  blood 
relatives  of  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  New  Hamp- 
shire, and  filial  homage  binds  us  to  their  fellowship.  A 
thousand  ties,  in  culture  and  thought,  in  religion  and  edu- 
cation, in  commerce  and  industry,  unite  us  with  the  parent 
States,  and  we  glory  in  our  New  England  heritage  and 
proudly  claim  our  part  in  New  England  eminence  and  worth. 

Nevertheless  Vermont  is  not  duly  appreciated  nor  rightly 
understood  until  she  is  accorded  her  place  as  the  last-bom 
child  of  New  England  and  the  first  bold  emigrant  to  the 
West.  It  was  the  West  in  Vermont  which  President  Dwight 
failed  to  appreciate.  Our  people  were  too  rough  for  him 
and  there  was  too  much  of  the  frontier  about  them.  But  it 
was  the  “wild  people”  of  Ethan  Allen  who  represented  the 
New  America,  the  America  which  was  to  become  the  Ameri- 
can nation,  rather  than  the  cultured  theologian  or  the  gentle- 
man soldier  of  the  older  communities.  Two  years  after  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  Massachusetts  banished  60 

[17] 


graduates  of  Harvard  College  among  some  300  Tories,  and 
the  roster  of  the  English  sympathizers  is  declared  to  read 
like  “the  beadroll  of  the  oldest  and  noblest  families  con- 
cerned in  the  founding  and  upbuilding  of  New  England  civil- 
ization”. The  “wild  people”  never  sold  out  their  country. 
They  made  her  what  she  is,  subduing  the  continent  for  her 
home,  and  in  conquering  forest  and  prairie  they  created  the 
type  of  man  who  was  to  stand  before  the  world  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  new  continent — tall,  sinewy  strong,  keen  in 
wit,  droll  in  speech,  piercing  to  the  heart  of  a matter  with 
shrewd,  discerning  instinct,  quick  to  pick  a quarrel  where 
his  rights  were  concerned  and  never  ready  to  lay  it  down  till 
the  last  ball  had  left  his  rifle,  generous  in  service  for  the 
common  good,  believing  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
as  his  very  gospel,  his  face  to  the  empire  in  the  west,  whither 
his  restless  spirit  led  him  on  until  he  had  stamped  his  insti- 
tutions and  his  character  on  the  nation  whose  home  he 
had  won. 

In  the  history  of  America  the  East  has  always  been  a 
fixed  term.  It  has  denoted,  and  still  denotes,  the  Atlantic 
seaboard,  Europe-facing  and  Europe- thinking,  conservative, 
commercial,  manufacturing,  tending  to  quiet,  ordered  ways, 
guardian  of  old-world  culture,  nursery  of  American  litera- 
ture, American  learning,  and  American  thought.  So  long 
as  America  was  confined  to  the  fringe  of  colonies  on  the 
Atlantic,  the  nation  remained  economically  dependent, 
European  in  thought  and  culture.  The  nation  was  made  by 
its  expansion  toward  the  west.  Its  real  independence — intel- 
lectual, spiritual,  and  personal — was  achieved  in  the  con- 
quest of  the  wide  spaces  of  the  mid-continent.  The  Ameri- 
can genius  was  wrought  on  the  ever-receding  frontier. 

The  first  stage  of  the  march  in  the  conquest  of  the  con- 
tinent was  accomplished  by  the  Green  Mountain  Boys.  Our 
glory  is  not  alone  in  Plymouth  Rock;  it  is  far  more  on  the 
prairies  and  beneath  the  Rockies,  where  the  spirit  that  awoke 

[18] 


first  in  the  Green  Mountain  valleys  has  made  America  great. 
Vermont, 'first  inland  State,  first  proved  the  power  of  expan- 
sion in  the  American  people.  She  was  the  first  State  which 
was  never  a colony,  never  in  bondage  to  any  man.  Her  clos- 
est kinship  is  with  the  free  American  pioneers,  not  with  the 
old-world  colonists.  She  can  never  be  content  as  a minor 
state  of  New  England,  a dependency  of  Boston.  The  men  of 
Vermont  started  for  the  west,  and,  if  they  did  not  get  far, 
they  got  far  enough  to  catch  the  spirit.  It  is  ignorance  of 
her  history  and  denial  of  her  genius  that  advise  her  to  remain 
selfrcentered,  training  her  children  toward  the  occupations 
which  their  fathers  happened  to  choose.  Vermonters  are 
citizens  of  great  America,  pioneers  of  a continent,  and  we 
demand  an  education  toward  the  life  of  the  nation. 

Old  Vermont! — to  the  hurrying  traveler  along  her  east- 
ern and  western  highways,  a wilderness  of  wild  mountains 
with  a narrow  foreground  of  meager  farms,  but  to  those  who 
know  her  defiles  and  passes  a net-work  of  fertile  valleys, 
smiling  in  plenty  and  content;  baptized  in  struggle  and  bred 
to  diplomacy  and  war,  her  children  fighters  all,  yet  as  true 
a lover  of  peace  as  ever  lived  beside  great  hills;  cautious, 
close-mouthed,  secretive,  trained  by  bitter  experience  to  the 
wisdom  of  suspicion,  yet  opening  her  heart  to  her  friends 
with  the  candor  of  a child;  excelled  by  none  in  unity  and 
brotherhood  when  roused  to  a common  cause,  then  lapsing 
by  reaction  to  jealousy  and  neighbor  hate  when  times  are 
tame  and  dull;  never  less  defeated  than  when  her  case  has 
gone  against  her,  and  always  prompt  with  a motion  to  recon- 
sider; the  passions  of  two  peoples  struggling  within  her, 
the  stable  East  and  the  restless  West;  loving  her  mountain 
sod  with  devotion  unsurpassed  in  any  land  beside  the  seven 
seas,  yet  thrusting  her  children  out  to  a better  country — a 
mother  of  pioneers  prodigal  beyond  all  others;  brave  and 
self-sacrificing  to  a fault,  proud  and  self-reliant,  yet  in  her 
secret  heart  an  underlying  fear  born  of  the  bitterest  disap- 

[19] 


pointments  that  ever  attended  the  birth  of  a State;  land  of 
contradictions  to  her  friends  from  without  and  to  all  who 
seek  to  put  her  genius  into  words;  but  to  those  who  know 
her  and  to  whom  she  accords  her  love,  straightforward  and 
single  in  loyalty  to  her  mission:  dear  old  Vermont! 

MEMBERS  OF  THE  CLASS  OF  1924: 

We  welcome  you  this  morning  to  the  college  of  Daniel 
P.  Thompson,  where  he  learned  just  100  years  ago  to  love 
the  Vermont  forests  and  the  story  of  the  Vermont  pioneers. 
We  hope  you  will  come  to  love  them,  too,  and  to  imbibe  as  he 
did  the  strength  of  the  hills.  Whether  from  near  or  far,  you 
will  look  out  for  four  years  on  the  graceful  valley  and  the 
glorious  mountains  beyond,  and,  if  you  view  them  with 
sympathetic  soul,  they  will  teach  you  beyond  any  power  of 
books.  These  mountains  have  been  makers  of  men,  men  of 
strength,  lovers  of  freedom  more  than  lovers  of  life,  simple 
in  bearing,  unpretentious,  not  effusive,  but  keen  in  mind, 
shrewd  in  judgment,  unconquerable  in  will,  good  fighters, 
content  that  life  should  hold  its  inevitable  disappointments, 
but  never  yielding  their  faith  nor  their  pride.  It  is  character 
we  seek  to  build  in  you,  Vermont  character,  founded  on  the 
strength  of  the  hills,  which  we  believe  our  college  symbolizes 
both  in  outward  form  and  in  inward  spirit.  However 
learned  or  skilled  you  become,  we  shall  have  failed  in  our 
chief  purpose  unless  we  reach  this  goal.  Very  frankly  and 
definitely  Middlebury  College  is  committed,  not  to  the  setting 
of  all  wisdom  before  you  that  you  may  choose  we  care  not 
what,  but  to  the  exposition  of  that  wisdom  which  makes  men 
of  the  calibre  of  the  men  who  made  Vermont.  There  was 
never  more  need  of  such  men  than  just  now.  To  this  work, 
therefore,  let  us  set  ourselves  with  all  our  strength. 

I now  declare  you  duly  matriculated  students  of  Middle- 
bury College  and  members  of  the  Class  of  1924. 


[20] 


